Felix Matches Tennis With Wrestling

Wrestling season begins in a few weeks, but Laura Felix already goes to the mat for the Calabasas High girls’ tennis team.

Felix, a sophomore who is among a recent wave of female wrestlers, competes in both sports for the Coyotes.

“They’re very different,” Felix said. “I enjoy playing tennis. But it just gets me through the season, and then we go to wrestling.”

Felix, a junior varsity tennis player most of the season, was promoted to the varsity two weeks ago and has played in three matches. She is 4-2 in sets at No. 3 singles and 3-0 in doubles with Jackie Yano.

The ambidextrous Felix has helped Calabasas (15-3, 6-0 in league play) to its second consecutive Frontier League title with an accurate serve and a competitive attitude.

“She doesn’t have a backhand,” Coach Bill Bellatty said with a laugh. “She hits both left-handed and right-handed, and she never runs around her backhand. She just moves the racket to whichever side it has to be.

“The thing about her is, she’s tenacious, and that comes from wrestling. She never, ever gives up. She just runs everything down.”

Andy Falk, the wrestling coach and a special-education teacher at Calabasas, encouraged Felix, a special-education student who was struggling in school and with personal problems last year, to come out for his team.

Little did either realize that wrestling would get Felix in a headlock, that she would actually come to enjoy it, and that she would begin to give near-falls and half-nelsons her full attention.

“At first, I just did it because Mr. Falk suggested it,” she said. “It was just keeping me out of trouble. But then I just started to enjoy it, and as I got better at it, I started to really like it.

“Wrestling is just you. It’s just whoever has more ability, more skill, and more determination and pride in winning that’s going to come out on top.”

Felix, 14, came out on top often in her first year of wrestling.

Competing on the Calabasas boys’ junior varsity team at 112 and 103 pounds, she was 5-0 in Frontier League matches as a freshman.

She placed 10th at 106 pounds in a U.S. Girls’ Wrestling Assn. national competition in Michigan last spring. She also attended a freestyle wrestling summer camp in Fullerton, and has progressed to the point that she is expected to compete on the Calabasas boys’ varsity team at 103 pounds this winter.

“I guess I did pretty well for my first year,” Felix said. “I knew I could handle it, but I’m surprised I did as well as I did.”

Falk isn’t.

“I was actually not surprised she could do so well, but that she’s continued to,” Falk said. “I’ve had other girls in wrestling, but Laura’s the only one who’s stuck with it.

“She just was a natural. She had a lot of moves already, on instinct, before she knew a thing about wrestling. There are boys who are stronger than she is, but she’s making up for it in speed and nerve.”

*

The girls’ teams in the city of Burbank each earned a share of the Foothill League championship this week.

Burbank’s co-championship season shows that first-year Coach Vazghen Zaghiyan has Burbank on the move after a third-place league finish last year. The Bulldogs (12-2-1, 9-1) have won eight consecutive matches since their loss to Burroughs (13-1, 9-1) in the first round of league play.

It is a feat familiar to Burroughs, less so to Burbank, which finished atop the league for the first time since 1993.

“To win the league, that was the whole goal,” said Zaghiyan, who graduated from the school in 1994 and is a Cal State Northridge senior.

Burroughs and Burbank split two 10-8 league decisions, the second one Oct. 19, giving Burbank a chance to claim a share of the title.

“We really concentrated on Burroughs,” Zaghiyan said. “The girls were prepared.”

The Bulldogs kept pace with Burroughs the rest of the way, finally picking up their share of the title with a 13-5 victory over Canyon on Thursday.

Burroughs entered the season favored to win the league after Hart won the championship in 1997 and ‘98, and Burroughs won it the three years before that.

Next up is the Foothill individual tournament next week, when Burbank’s No. 1 player, Olga Yepremian, will contend for the singles title along with 1998 runner-up Dragana Ognenovska of Burroughs.

After that are the team playoffs. Zaghiyan is well-acquainted.

Zaghiyan, 23, played on the Burbank boys’ team that won the Southern Section Division III championship in 1993 and, as a senior, he was the No. 1 player on the 1994 Bulldog squad that reached the Division III semifinals.

Zaghiyan’s history at Burbank helped his move into the coaching job. He took over from his mentor, long-time boys’ and girls’ coach Clyde Richards, who resigned last spring because of health reasons.

“It was kind of tough at first,” Zaghiyan said. “I had no idea what kind of players I had.

“If it had been at another place besides Burbank, I don’t think I would have done it.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

The Top 10

Rankings of region tennis teams

*--*

RK School (League) Rec. 1 Harvard-Westlake (Mission) 12-2 2 Calabasas (Frontier) 15-3 3 Westlake (Marmonte) 12-4 4 Burroughs (Foothill) 13-1 5 Granada Hills (West Valley) 12-0 6 Simi Valley (Marmonte) 14-4 7 Burbank (Foothill) 12-2-1 8 Buena (Channel) 13-4 9 La Reina (Tri-Valley) 11-4 10 San Fernando (Valley Mission) 12-0

*--*